On Making Things Difficult for Learners

In a memorable passage in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Soren Kierkegaard tells a story about the origins of his desire to become a philosopher. He begins by relating a tale, rich in Socratic irony, of the “fortunate lot of Dr. Hartspring” who, at Streit’s Hotel in Hamburg, “by a miracle (of which the waiters were unaware) became an adherent of the Hegelian philosophy which assumes that there are no miracles.” In contrast, Kierkegaard’s conversion occurs in the open air at a cafe in the Fredriksberg Garden while he smokes a cigar, “thinking and idling” and ruminating on what he describes as the “glittering inactivity” of his early life. “So there I sat and smoked my cigar until I lapsed into thought.”